2007-08-23T09:05:46-07:00 Practical Ecommerce info@practicalecommerce.com http://www.practicalecommerce.com/ Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing DBA Practical Ecommerce http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/547/Googles-Personalized-Search/#comment3498 2007-08-23T09:05:46-07:00

I dislike this idea not only as a businessperson, but also as a consumer of Google's search.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/547/Googles-Personalized-Search/#comment3497 2007-08-23T09:01:59-07:00

James, Good question. Mostly likely Google's thinking is that if you're searching for "food" you will get Chinese-food search results ranking higher than any other cousine (if your web history reveals that you prefer Chinese over everything else). However, if you do a search for "Mexican food" - you will still get Mexican-food search results regardless of your previous search patterns. Google's move to incorporate "web history" technology into "personalized search" is not only about tailoring searches to an individual level - but also identifying what an "online community" feels about specific search results (perhaps by looking at CTRs of different websites). Hope that helps! Greg

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/547/Googles-Personalized-Search/#comment3485 2007-08-21T19:30:45-07:00

I still can't quite wrap my mind around this concept. It seems that in some way, the search result placement has to remain static in order to deliver any consistent result at all. I can see how results from such a, more or less, static list could be tailored to fit the needs of searchers, who, let's say, want to see menus for Chinese as opposed to Mexican food on a regular basis, but these would still have to come from a static 1,2,3 list I would think. The thing that really puzzles me, is what happens when they decide to go Mexican one evening?